FAIZ Wah is a small village in Khairpur Mir’s Shah Ladhani district. It is famous for its exquisite scenery. The main canals from Sukkur connecting with Khairpur’s tehsils are Kingri, Khairpur and Gambat. The canals run as main arteries to arable lands in areas such as Faiz Wah, Abul Wah and Mir Wah.

At the banks of Abul Wah and Faiz Wah canals, there is a wide range of trees, like eucalyptus (safeda), vachellia nilotica (commonly known as Babar in Sindhi language), azadirachta indica (neem) and dalbergia sissoo (commonly known as tahli). These trees are the habitats of many seasonal birds, including cattle egrets, white great egrets, little egrets and black-crowned night heron. The black-crowned night heron is also called ‘quark bird’ because it makes a cacophony of sound when its flock flies at night in search of food.

The egrets are more variable when it comes to their arrival dates than the herons. They usually arrive in mid-March and start laying eggs in the fourth week of March in vachellia nilotica trees.

The black-crowned night heron’s breeding activities appear to occur in spring and at the end of summer. It usually forms its colonies in eucalyptus trees. During the breeding season, many chicks of these water-birds die because of either falling from the trees or getting run over by vehicles on the roads they fall on. Only a few of them survive the whole cycle of the breeding process.

The colonies of egrets and black-crowned night heron have diminished over the last couple of years, with 60-70 per cent of egret birds and 40-50pc of black-crowned night herons having been pushed out from Faiz Wah due to indiscriminate chopping of trees along the banks of canals by the Sindh Irrigation Department.

According to the local people, vulture habitats were also found in Faiz Wah till around the turn of the century, but after the massive cutting down of trees, especially dalbergia sissoo, eucalyptus and vachellia nilotica, the specie left Faiz Wah for good.

Chopping of trees does not only threaten the natural habitat of these birds, but also has the potential to disturb the ecosystem of our village, affecting everything from water availability to livestock.

The authorities should plant more trees along the banks otherwise these birds too will go extinct in our part of the world.

Naimatullah Gadhi
Khairpur Mir’s

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2021